Leadership Assignment: Initiating Change Management in Burton London

Question

Task: Prepare a leadership assignment justifying (ONE) strategy to successfully help it increase the market share of Burton London in the UK.

Answer

Introduction
Aprimary source of business downfall observed herein leadership assignment isnot having any sort of essential tactical plan. On the off chance that a business has little assumption of where it is headed, it will meander erratically without primacies, evolving continually, and with workers confounded about the motivation behind their positions. This is the reason corporate strategy planning is of importance, in fact; is basic to business achievement, regardless of whether the arranging cycle requires some serious energy and assets.

In this report, Burton London which is a premiere men’s clothing fashion company, recently purchased by Boohoo is discussed (BBC, 2021). Earlier, Burton belonged to the failed retail group Arcadia. After being purchased in February, 2021, the new management is now keen to increase the brand’s market capture in UK. The report shall discuss various concepts which might assist in planning a good strategic approach by the brand. It shall analyse the provided SWOT analysis to decide on factors that may influence creating a strategic plan for the company to follow.

Strategic Audit Overview
Strategy is all of plan, position, perspective and pattern. After the initial policy which has been established, strategy acts as a bridge to help the organization reach the higher order goals it set (Bryson et al., 2018). In this case, Burton had a position that of a failed retail group Arcadia’s part. Its plans are that to expand its markets and gain larger market margin in the UK.

The conducted SWOT analysis of Burton highlights that the weakness of the business is this that it solely caters to men’s clothing and not women which draws maximum consumers to fashion brands. Also, its adherence to ‘retail-sales only’ concept is a major drawback. A look at its social media presence is quite a downer compared to its competitors like Jacamo or Moss Bros. The customer trust ratings are not at all appreciable just like its e-commerce ranking.

Coming to its threats, due to Brexit and the ongoing pandemic, there is major threat to increase in costs of operation, labour costs, and taxes and so on owing to possible changes in policy by the government. The entry threat to this industry is relatively low and quite accessible at the level Burton’s brand positioning. There is an increased demand for clothes-on-rental which Burton does not provide any facility of, so it loses potential customers in that space as well.

Coming to opportunities for Burton, it may be worth mentioning that the ongoing pandemic presents the perfect timing for burton to enter e-commerce space. The SWOT analysis clearly indicates that from 2022 onwards, there is an expected boom in fashion industry. This is what Burton needs to take into account and make steady preparations for. Making use of terrific presence and strategic capabilities of Boohoo, Burton could further its market share in the UK.

Coming to talk of strengths of Burton, the highlight is it becoming part of Boohoo Group PLC. It is a brand with heritage value to it. Owing to this, it is known as one of the most old and good brands with many people knowing about it. There are many women shoppers ta its store who shops on behalf of men. Its presence in magazines, international magazines, TV series for global audiences, new collection launches etc. make it a bankable brand.

So, overall, it can be deduced that Burton’s has a bankable brand presence and potential to expand further into the UK market with appropriate and timely strategies put n place at the earliest.

Strategic Options
Michael Porter’s 5 generic strategize emphasis on business trying to gain form implementing generic strategies that could give them a competitive advantage(Islami et al., 2020, pp. 1-15). This technique depends on procuring a higher piece of the market by alluring to the cost-cognizant and value sensitive clients. This is accomplished by having the least cost in the target section, or having the best value for the service or item, which got exchanged with the cost.

The Michael Porter's Five Generic Strategies has an emphasis on making tactics that assists with acquiring upper hands from three unique bases: Cost leadership, Differentiation and focus. These underlying techniques as depicted by Porter were: Cost Leadership (modest, no costs), Differentiation (novel or premium items) and Focus (a specific assistance or market). He later sub-isolated Focus into two distinct techniques: Differentiation Focus (special strategydifferentiation in an engaged market) and Cost Focus (lower costs in an engaged market) (Subrahmanyam & Azad, 2019, pp. 137-45).

Therefore, from the perspective of Burton creatingcompetitive advantage for itself using the three available strategies that is cost leadership, differentiation and focus will be discussed further.

a. Cost Leadership –For this, Burton could make a section where it leads in best in quality and lower rates for their clothes. It could also be a permanent sales section. Alternatively, this could also be a clothes rental section. In a gist, this section will offer clothes of Burton at the lowest price model. This could also be achieved by Burton by launching a collection which caters to such customers who are not keen on spending lot on brands but appreciate the brand value.

b. Differentiation – Similarly, Burton could also launch a premium section where niche collections are showcased. It should be a novel offering and appeals to the consumers who are interested in premium experience and even experience new things or fashion designs and do not mind spending extra for it.

c. Focus – Here Burton needs to cater to a specific group of consumers and offer products appealing to them. It could be a plus size collection, celebrity autographed collection or quirky products on themes which have cult following globally, such as Star Trek or Game of Thrones and so on. The most viable option is foray into women’s wear.

These are some options following Michael Porter’s strategy concept that must be considered by Burton to increase its market capture.

Strategic Selection
As per David Aaker's Aaker Model, strategy selection choices ought to be acknowledged to the extent that they meet the following six measures:

• They are receptive to the outside environment.
• They include a maintainable competitive edge.
• They are reliable with different other strategies in place in the association.
• They are satisfactorily adaptable to the business and the association.
• They are achievable by the organization (Chao, 2019).

Three tests can be utilized to assess the benefits of one strategy over another and to check how great of astrategy it may be:

a. The Goodness of Fit Test
A decent methodology is very much coordinated to the organization's circumstance - both interior and outside elements and its own abilities and desires.

b. The Competitive Advantage Test
A decent system prompts reasonable upper hand in market. The greater the upper hand that a procedure helps assembles the more remarkable and viable it is.

c. The Performance Test
A decent system supports organization’s performance. Two sorts of performance enhancements are the most worth mentioning: gains in productivity and gains in the organization's long-term business strength and competitive position.

Based on this model, the competitive advantage of Burton, the Goodness of Fit Test and the performance test all indicate that for Burton, the best choice could indeed be foray into e-commerce and into women’s section as well. The reasons could be discussed as following:

a. Foraying into women’s wear and e commerce together could help Burton relaunch. As it is, owing to pandemic situation, people may not be that keen on in-store shopping. However, since Burton has mostly women shoppers, along with buying menswear, they may as well get converted into loyal shoppers for new women’s wear that Burton launches. It would aid Burton’s long term plans and immediate plan to extend its market capture in a good way as people would be interested to see how a heritage brand fares in new offerings in modern offerings.

b. When it comes to competitive advantage, Burton enjoys a loyal fan following owing to it being a heritage brand and because it dedicatedly offers only menswear. All its competitors are already into women’s wear and accessories. This is why it would add a curiosity factor to Burton’s relaunch into this section of product offerings.

c. When it comes to Performance Test, it is yet to be observed in real-world scenario, however, Burton needs to be amply supported by Boohoo in this venture with right people and systems built to support the expansion.

Strategic Implications
The strategic ramifications are the significant results emerging from not understanding and handling the innumerable effect of powers and elements of progress that can frequently affect a business at different points (Samba et al., 2020):

• Political, administrative and lawful
• Financial and money related
• socio-cultural
• In terms of technology
• Environmental and ecological

The strategic implications of Burton foraying into women’s wear along with launching into e-commerce space could leverage its operating costs and tax increases associated with a physical store and labour involved. Also, it would then provide it to operate with fewer retail stores or no stores at all and just an e-commerce website long with a warehouse. This would allow it to significantly focus its efforts towards better social media presence and other digital marketing options to transform and elevate the brand’s appeal. This will be adoption of technology and blending with the newer trends for business survival (Heikkila et al., 2018). Chances of hurting the socio-cultural sentiments and environmental and ecological impacts would be far less compared to the complete retail model.

Implementation Needs.
For the strategic plan, which has been finalized needs, to be implemented company-wide; there needs to be good implementation plan as well. Organisation wide communication should be made and company goals will need to be appropriately aligned. It is of utmost importance to have clear goals and multiple short milestones to be achieved on the way (Bryson, 2018). Creation of goals is to be treated urgently. Proper people aligned to right teams in charge of objectives ensure that the plan is moving as planned (Bryson et al., 2018). Of course there needs to be appropriate monitoring to make sure it does not get derailed. Also, the goals need to be short termed and not very large and too many in numbers which does not make it practical or achievable (Ogbari et al., 2018, pp. 1-15).It is important to track progress as mentioned to ensure the contribution by each team member is moving as planned. Incase of issues or operational hurdles, appropriate improvisations could be made. This necessarily could be erased through proper meetings in regular intervals (Powell et al., 2017, pp. 77-194).

Conclusion
In this leadership assignment, the organization Burton Menswear UK was discussed. Burton was recently procured by Boohoo and wants to expand its market capture in UK. In strategic audit, Burton’s SWOT analysis was discussed where in the opportunities and threats were taken into consideration based on which a strategic choice was suggested to be taken up by Burton. In the strategic options which were discussed, came up a very viable and logical choice based on the huge opportunity it brought forward. Finally, when it came to strategic selection, it was suggested that Burton took advantage of the pandemic period and relaunched itself with a women’s wear section into the e-commerce section to increase its customer count and appeal of business. Strategic implications and the implementation needs were also further discussed.

As is understood, this exercise will give Burton a goal and a direction to move which is the real reason why organisations actually indulge in practices of strategic planning. It aids in setting up goals and keeps an eye on progress on the same as form of progression of strategy aiding in improvisations if need arises.

References
BBC. (2021, February 8). Boohoo buys Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton but 2,450 jobs lost. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55977587.

Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.

Bryson, J. M., Edwards, L. H., & Van Slyke, D. M. (2018). Getting strategic about strategic planning research.

Chao, Q. (2019). The Effectiveness of Corporate Response to Brand Crises: The Crisis Response Strategies, and Customer-based Brand Equity. Leadership assignment In 5th International Conference on Economics, Management and Humanities Science (ECOMHS 2019) DOI (Vol. 10).

Heikkilä, M., Bouwman, H., & Heikkilä, J. (2018). From strategic goals to business model innovation paths: an exploratory study. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.

Islami, X., Mustafa, N., & Latkovikj, M. T. (2020). Linking Porter’s generic strategies to firm performance. Future Business Journal, 6(1), 1-15.

Ogbari, M. E., Ibidunni, O. S., Ogunnaike, O. O., Olokundun, A. M., & Amaihian, A. B. (2018). A comparative analysis of small business strategic orientation: Implications for performance. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 17(1), 1-15.

Powell, B. J., Beidas, R. S., Lewis, C. C., Aarons, G. A., McMillen, J. C., Proctor, E. K., & Mandell, D. S. (2017). Methods to improve the selection and tailoring of implementation strategies. The journal of behavioral health services & research, 44(2), 177-194.

Samba, C., Tabesh, P., Thanos, I. C., & Papadakis, V. M. (2020). Method in the madness? A meta-analysis on the strategic implications of decision comprehensiveness. Strategic Organization, 1476127020904973.

Subrahmanyam, S., & Azad, S. (2019). Carrefour’s Competitive Strategy-Cost Leadership and Differentiation: A Case Study. Pacific Business Review International, 11(8), 137-45.